


Unclouded and Unveiled (The One Where They're Opera Singers)

by galeaspida



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, No Fach Puns Here I Promise, No Lyrics Either, Oneshot, Opera AU, Vocal Technique, this is not a song fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:07:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23439676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galeaspida/pseuds/galeaspida
Summary: Tissaia de Vries is an internationally-renowned Dutch soprano. Yennefer is her prickly protege plucked from an ordinary life and thrust into an opera house. Together they argue over breath control.
Relationships: Tissaia de Vries/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 55
Kudos: 206





	Unclouded and Unveiled (The One Where They're Opera Singers)

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from the aria ‘Casta Diva’.
> 
> (The one-shot AU I didn’t know would exist, but I needed to step away from 'The Bridge' for a bit.)

‘How do you expect to have any degree of control when you are hunched over like something out of Victor Hugo’s imagination, Yennefer?’

The auditorium is dark, save for a single light overhead, and Yennefer is alone on stage. All the stage hands have gone home for the evening, the only evidence of their days work being the mostly-finished set of a forest glade complete with full-sized oak trees. 

Yennefer’s thankful for their absence - she doesn’t appreciate public humiliation any more than the next girl.

‘Stand up tall! Support your voice with your posture! How many times must I tell you these things before you listen?’

Yennefer glares down into the dimly-lit seats. She can’t quite see the details of the woman in the ninth row, but her voice is perfectly clear even at that distance.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise: Tissaia de Vries is one of the best sopranos to come from Europe in the last half-century, blessed with a natural clarity and agility to her voice that critics universally contend to be peerless and audiences around the world pay millions to hear. Now in her early 40s, she’s spending time between her numerous international performances advising select students in London at her original company.

And for some obscure reason she’s chosen Yennefer as her special project of the last three years. 

Yennefer, who comes from a working-class family and had never even seen a performance until she was 23, with the only formal musical training prior to that drawn from spotty attendance in the school choir and a handful of piano lessons from an elderly neighbour. 

Yennefer, who has five younger siblings and was born to immigrant parents; a Polish father and an Indian mother. Parents who have not forgiven her for abandoning the family restaurant and refuse to speak with her to this day.

Yennefer, who had been singing along to a recording of The Messiah on Radio 3 while closing up the restaurant on a December night three years ago when a strange woman burst through the door to the kitchen and demanded that Yennefer abandon her dismal life of mopping floors to join an opera company under her tutelage.

Yennefer had initially refused. She'd had no clue who Tissaia was at the time and assumed she was being mocked as some sort of sick joke. She'd only begrudgingly accepted the proffered ticket to the woman's performance the following evening because it was better than another Saturday watching Doctor Who with her roommates.

(This is a lie. She'd accepted the ticket because a beautiful woman appearing at midnight offering up an evening of civilized entertainment reserved to the upper class seemed like something out of Cinderella. And Yennefer has a hidden romantic streak a mile wide and a good imagination.)

Sometimes she wishes she hadn't changed her mind. Tissaia is as far from a kindly wish-granting fairy godmother as one can get. 

‘I do hope I’m not _boring_ you, Yennefer.’

The icy tones from the dark bring her back firmly to the present: standing on a half-finished stage in a glade of large trees made of wood and fabric, under the all-seeing gaze of an impatient and jet-lagged diva. 

Yennefer stands up, expanding her chest, opening her mouth to begin the aria anew. 

‘Too shallow.’ Tissaia’s voice snaps like a whip. ‘Again.’

Yennefer’s lungs deflate in a stuttered exhalation, punctured by the words. 

Beyond the inevitable criticism Yennefer receives each time Tissaia returns from her performances after weeks away, the other issue is Yennefer’s planet-sized crush on her tormentor. She should not find Tissaia’s rigid perfectionism quite so arousing, but the woman is beautiful, and her unrelenting aloofness is only an open invitation to disrupt the control. 

(Just once, Yennefer would like to open up the neck of Tissaia's blouse, to muss up the carefully styled hair with her fingers, to fold up the woman's glasses and toss them aside.)

A steadying breath, pushing away the distracting mental image that flashes into the forefront of her mind. She launches back into the aria with grim determination.

The aria is one of four songs she will perform when the production opens in less than a week. The libretto is in English - Stregobor’s choice - he believes it will draw in younger audiences. Yennefer knows that Tissaia does not approve of the libretto or of Stregobor’s reasons for eschewing traditional productions, and that the woman had vetoed outright his initial insistence on nudity for Yennefer’s character in the second act. 

Whatever frustrations Tissaia may have with Yennefer’s bullheadedness are dwarfed by the antagonistic relationship between Tissaia and the production’s artistic director - the last five years of intermittent collaboration have been as brilliant as they are hostile. The only thing the company gossips about more than Tissaia and Stregobor's battle of wills is the simmering romantic tension between the leads of this production - Eiste and Calanthe. Being on stage with those two always makes Yennefer feel like she is intruding on a very private encounter as they send lustful looks at each other through every rehearsal.

‘Stop.’

Yennefer pauses mid-way through a crescendo. She knows she was straining her voice at the end. 

‘How do you expect to have any energy left for the rest of the line if you expend your voice in the first few measures?’ Tissaia sounds as frustrated as Yennefer feels. ‘Your Italian is passable at best, your attempts at German an insult to Mozart’s genius, so the fact that this is in English should come as a relief, but it does not, because you are running out of breath after four words and slurring the remainder.’

Tissaia has struck a nerve. Traditional librettos have been a challenge for Yennefer - she started too late to have any familiarity with the languages - and her natural ear for music and her perfect pitch make it easy to mimic the words without understanding the meaning behind them, which frustrates Tissaia no end when it comes to interpretation.

‘I am trying to do what you’re telling me.’ Yennefer says hotly. 

‘Attacking each line without any sense of preparation?’ Tissaia says sharply. ‘Gasping for breath by collapsing your lungs and closing your throat?’

She’s moved down the stairs to the front of the auditorium seats, and her expression is tense as she frowns up at the young woman on stage.

‘Nothing is stable in your voice right now, Yennefer, and you are forcing sound out. Free up your jaw! Must I stand there and _hold_ it open for you?'

This threat only makes Yennefer’s face flush hotly. 

'I return after three weeks away to find that you are worse off than I left you-' Tissaia says harshly. '-Why bother showing up at all? You ignore any advice that is contrary to your own preferences, you’ve been late to rehearsals if what I hear is true, and I’ve yet to see any progress in your phrasing.’ 

‘Upset about all the precious talent wasted on me?’ Yennefer retorts.

If she hasn’t improved, it is because Tissaia abandoned her to lesser tutors in her absence. Yennefer is only willing to try her best for Tissaia. Not that she’d ever admit it out loud.

The stage light reflects off Tissaia's glasses as she returns Yennefer's look of scorn with a steely one of her own. Yennefer hasn't worked out whether the woman wears them out of an actual visual need or because she likes having something to look over in a stern manner. Like right now.

‘Natural vocal ability counts for nothing if you won’t practice, girl,’ she warns. ‘Do not waste my time - I will not hesitate to kick you out of the production, and there are others who would jump at the chance to take your place.’ 

Yennefer is well aware. Fringilla and Sabrina first among them - and the latter is clearly still holding a grudge about her upset from anticipated stardom by Yennefer’s meteoric rise in the company over the last three years. 

But Yennefer wants this. She wants the part, she wants to sing on stage, and she wants to be the focus of Tissaia’s attention, however gruelling these sessions might be.

The sound of heels on carpet signals movement up the stairs to the right side of the stage. Yennefer clenches her jaw, lifting her chin to glare out at the empty rows of red velvet beyond, up at the balcony.

The first production Yennefer had ever seen had been Bellini’s _Norma_ , in this very concert hall, the night after she’d met Tissaia. She’d sat in her balcony seat, entranced, drinking in the glory of a professional opera production below, with its beautiful moving sets and sumptuous costumes and exquisite music. 

The glory of the soprano’s clear voice that night had stirred something inside of Yennefer that she’d never quite been able to rid herself of. Watching the very woman who was now the bane of her every waking moment in the eponymous lead role, hearing the controlled power behind the priestess's prayer in the first act, in words she could not understand but had felt deep in her soul. 

It had been mesmerizing. 

_Tissaia_ had been mesmerizing.

Yennefer had never wanted anything more than to be able to draw that kind of power over others, to command every eye in a hall to turn to her. To be _noticed_. 

A firm touch to her stomach draws her back into the present. Back to the dark hall, and the barely-lit stage, back to a week before opening night at Yennefer’s first major role on stage.

Tissaia is standing beside her. For all her earlier stern reproach, the woman’s face is expressionless. Her hand is resting on Yennefer's abdomen. 

'Breathe from here,' Tissaia instructs, her blue eyes locked onto Yennefer’s own. ‘Don’t tighten your muscles - allow the diaphragm to descend and draw in air naturally. True vibrato can only happen when the larynx is relaxed and your jaw is loose.'

Yennefer’s face twitches into a grimace, but she consciously settles against the woman’s hand.

‘Close your eyes.’

A beat.

‘I said _close_ them.’

She exhales harshly, bristling at being told what to do, but allows her eyes to close all the same.

‘Open up your mouth.’ Tissaia’s voice is softer now, warmer. ‘Relax your shoulders.'

The tension slowly seeps out of Yennefer’s muscles as cool fingers slip from brushing her now-relaxed jaw to smooth against either side of her neck. Tissaia has moved behind her, her footsteps are light on the wood stage.

‘Arms loose, Yennefer.’

She allows her arms to drop lower, feeling the slow descent of hands down her sleeves.

‘Take a controlled breath into your lungs.’

Yennefer obeys, drawing in a conscious breath through her nose. The flicker of fingers down her spine, reminding her to stand up straight and tall, moving to either side of her ribs, pressing inwards.

'And out.'

The first lesson Yennefer had ever been given by this woman had been about the mechanics of breathing.

'Breathe in.'

She inhales quietly, filling her lungs to the bases.

‘Now,' Tissaia murmurs close to her ear, her voice barely a whisper. 'Sing the opening E flat - and sustain it.’

Yennefer opens her eyes and lets forth the clearest sound she can summon, holding it for the full four measures, extending the dynamic crescendo into a controlled vibrato at the end. 

She still has breath left over when she’s finished. 

A glance over at Tissaia shows the woman nodding, her eyebrows raised expectantly, indicating that she should continue. Yennefer soars through the next few lines of bright notes, responding to the physical cues that are the lightest of touches to her back or belly, reminding her to loosen her shoulders and expand her rib cage on the next inhalation.

Tissaia raises a hand, and Yennefer stops.

‘You are in love.’

Yennefer’s thoughts suddenly jumbled by the low voice next to her, and it is only when Tissaia continues that her words become clear. 

‘Your beloved soldier has come home after a year away, but you don’t know whether he has been faithful to you while the two of you have been apart. You also know that his wealthy mother - your mistress - will not approve of the match because you are not of noble birth.’

Istredd. Istredd, the tenor, who is playing a soldier home from war in this production. Not Tissaia, who isn’t a potential love interest, and is very real, and is standing beside her.

‘Control your voice.’ Tissaia intones, brushing a hand against Yennefer’s chest. ‘Use your body to shape the sound, allow it to pass through you and out to the audience. I need you to express all of that conflict and passion inside of you when you sing, Yennefer - convince your audience of your love and the barriers that stand in its way.’

They are in each other’s space. Yennefer can smell the woman’s light perfume, can count her dark eyelashes, can see the spots of reflected light in her clear blue eyes as she looks up at her.

Yennefer realizes too late that she’s been staring at Tissaia’s lips for an unnecessary length of time. 

The empty auditorium is suddenly stifling. She’s struck by the sudden desperation to put a safe distance between the temptation to ruin three years of work because she hasn’t any control over her hormones.

Yennefer takes a staggered step back, her narrow body ungainly. 

Tissaia doesn’t blink at the distance.

'I think that is enough for tonight.’

‘I can do better.’ Yennefer says stubbornly.

‘And _I_ returned from Australia three hours ago and would like to sleep before dealing with the next terrible proposal that our artistic director will inevitably present to me.’ Tissaia purses her lips. ‘Who knows, perhaps he’ll try to divest the orchestra of their clothing - nude instrumentalists would certainly draw in crowds.'

With that, Tissaia walks off in the direction of the door in the wings. Yennefer is left standing alone on center stage, watching the edge of the stage curtain ripple in the woman's passing.

—

The final dress rehearsal the following week is an unmitigated disaster. 

A backdrop falls and shatters a particularly delicate piece of scenery, narrowly avoiding killing a member of the chorus. The horse that Eiste rides on stage for his opening number almost skitters into the orchestra pit. Worst of all, Calanthe, the lead soprano, has been struck with a wicked cold that leaves her with laryngitis - she’ll be off for a week at least. 

Calanthe’s understudy is trapped in New York until the following day at the earliest, all planes grounded by a snowstorm that has blanketed the East Coast in three feet of snow. 

There is talk about cancelling opening night but after a vicious verbal stand-off with Stregobor that echoes across the building’s walls and draws the ears of the entire stage, a decision is made. 

Tissaia is to take up the lead role until the understudy can get back to London. She’s fully capable, of course - she has the range and is familiar with the score.

But Yennefer has never shared a stage with Tissaia. And there is a duet between their characters in Act 2 which involves an incredibly complex harmony that Yennefer has been slaving over for weeks. And she’s not quite certain how she’ll manage to do it with Tissaia opposite her, in front of an audience no less.

—

At eight o’ clock the following evening, Yennefer stands in the wings, listening to the sounds of the orchestra warming up outside the curtain and the murmurs of an opening night audience settling in their seats. 

Across the stage she spots Tissaia, her hands clasped in front of her.

Tissaia looks eerily calm for someone who has been shoved into a role with only twenty four hours to prepare. She’s wearing a blue silk gown that a trio of dressmakers had spent all night working on it - at a good six inches shorter and thirty or so pounds lighter than Calanthe, none of the costumes fit, and so the wardrobe department’s final night was spent making an entirely new set of clothing that look close enough to the originals and should last for at least three performances until the understudy can return to London.

The opening sounds of the overture begins and the dark curtains draw back to reveal the glade of trees. Smiling, Yennefer strides out onto the stage with three chorus members, each carrying woven baskets to collect flowers, costumed nymphs flowing through the choreographed dance between the surrounding trees.

The first act goes surprisingly smoothly, with few hiccups beyond some staging directions that were changed at the last minute. By the end of the act, when Eiste finishes his number and Istredd has confessed his love for Yennefer on a garden terrace, she hasn’t missed a note or a cue.

The rush at intermission is predictably chaotic. As soon as the curtain comes down, Yennefer is dodging the set crew who are changing the stage into two separate sections, slipping by a gaggle of dancers in her rush to get downstairs. She is chased by a wardrobe assistant who is already furiously pulling the hooks off of Yennefer’s dress as they move towards the dressing room. This change is the most challenging, and while they’ve reduced it down to a much shorter time, it is still stressful.

‘Twenty-five minutes,’ comes the call over the speakers from the stage manager. 

Twenty-four minutes later, Yennefer is rushing back to stage right, her wig in place, hair down to her waist, her gown changed for a white satin slip. The wing stage assistant nods at her and calls over the mic to confirm her presence.

Act two opens with Yennefer’s character approaching her mistress, played by Tissaia, while the woman prepares for bed, to beg her to allow her to marry her son, Istredd.

The recitative completed as she pleads her case, accompanied by the harpsichord. The strings join in with the opening notes and their duet is set to start when Yennefer realizes too late that Tissaia is in the wrong spot - the last-minute change that had been put in place the previous day by a panicked stage director had not been relayed to the woman. 

As it is, Tissaia has moved too close to Yennefer on stage left, sitting on the daybed instead of on the chair near the window.

But this will still work, Yennefer realizes, with an adjustment.

She begins to sing, initially tremulous as the role requires, wringing her hands in front of her - her character frightened of the reaction her revelation may spark. Becoming more confident, moving across the stage to stop and kneel at Tissaia’s feet, gazing up at her as she pleads her desires.

And then their voices merge together as Tissaia joins her.

Tissaia is using her rich lower register that she so rarely gets to use in her usual lyric soprano roles. The purity behind her voice is astonishing, and Yennefer finds herself trying harder than she ever has before to match that quality of sound.

Yennefer lays her hand on her bare ankle in supplication. It’s not scripted.

And suddenly the words about accepting her youthful love and forgiving the difference in social status take on a very different meaning, and she is clutching on to Tissaia’s wrist, pressing it to her breast over her heart.

The audience, the hall, the orchestra fade away as she sings her heart out, lost in the seamless duet, floating in the beauty that they create in their harmony, layering their voices on top of each other. For the first time in her life, Yennefer knows true balance.

Time passes so quickly that Yennefer only notices that they’ve finished singing when she hears the sound of the orchestra beginning the music for the next number, their side of the stage darkening, the lights focusing on Eiste and Istredd’s entrance, each carrying a sword. 

In the dark, she feels Tissaia’s hand on her cheek, brushing away the tears there.

Yennefer hadn’t noticed she had been crying. 

The rest of the night is a blur, and it is only two hours later, when Yennefer is standing in the dark hall of the city flat she shares with her roommate, that she realizes that she didn’t say anything to Tissaia afterwards. 

—

‘Reviews are in.’

Triss - her roommate, and one of the chorus members at the opera house - has entered Yennefer’s room without knocking. The woman marches straight to the window and opens the blinds wide to let in the morning sunshine, ignoring the groan of protest this elicits from Yennefer.

A newspaper is tossed down on the foot of Yennefer’s bed, landing softly on one of her legs.

A squinting glance at her flashing phone to find out the time shows a missed alarm, thirty unread messages, and a dozen emails. Throwing her phone down beside her pillow for the moment, Yennefer begins to blearily leaf through the arts section. 

‘Nope, not there. The front page.’ Triss says as she settles on the dresser, tossing her thick curls off her shoulder. ‘Congratulations, by the way.’

Blinking, Yennefer flips back to the front page. Political scandal with the House of Lords, royal baby news, stock market, and…

‘Oh.’

Yennefer’s frown only deepens as she moves down the page, absorbed in the three paragraphs of the review. 

‘Oh fuck.'

‘Mmm. And there are half a dozen other critics who all mention the same thing.’ Triss is watching Yennefer like a hawk over the rim of her mug of tea. ‘It seems everyone came for a chance to see Tissaia yesterday, but got an unexpected bonus.'

Yennefer massages the sides of her temples. She’s not awake enough for this yet.

‘Now, before you answer all those messages that are undoubtedly on your phone - perhaps you might speak with Tissaia?’

—

Tissaia’s hair is damp when she opens the door to Yennefer’s knock. 

The woman is dressed in a cotton robe and is barefoot. She smells like the floral conditioner she favours, and there are clear lines of exhaustion on her angular face.

Tissaia looks Yennefer up and down and then wordlessly steps back to allow the woman to enter, shutting the door quietly behind her.

Yennefer has never been inside Tissaia’s flat. It’s much as she would have expected - light-coloured walls, modern Scandinavian furniture that is definitely not from Ikea. There are a surprising number of books on tall shelves, a baby grand piano in one room, and a pair of large photographs of seascapes that fill either side of the sitting room’s walls. 

The tall windows let in light and look over the park beyond.

Most conspicuous is the fresh newspaper on the table next to a still-steaming cup of tea on a saucer. Herbal, by the smell. Tissaia is of the generation of singers where caffeine is avoided and even the hint of a suggestion of coffee will draw a frown and a terse mention of its effect on vocal cords.

Tissaia has disappeared into the kitchen and Yennefer hears the click of a kettle being set back on the stove. After a minute, there is a whistling, and then the sound of water being poured, followed by the gentle pad of footsteps back to the sitting room as Tissaia reappears with a matching cup and saucer. 

She hands over the tea to Yennefer, who’s seated herself on one of the chairs at the table.

As one, they glance at the newspaper on the table.

'This may be a first in headlines for me,’ Tissaia says, bringing a hand up and pinching the bridge of her nose. ‘It isn't often critics are bold enough to write such imaginative reviews, let alone multiple writers to do so independently.’ She sighs. ‘How did this one put it again?'

Tissaia picks up the paper and reads the damning passage out loud in clipped tones.

‘...While de Vries was at her usual standard of unsurpassed vocal prowess, her engagement with the baritone Eiste fell flat in comparison to the enviable chemistry she had with newcomer Vengerberg who plays her maid. In an astonishingly electric duet that will go down for the ages as one of the better melodies to come out of modern operas, one could easily understand if the women ran off with each other rather than with their listless male co stars...’ 

‘You felt it too.’ Yennefer says quietly, her eyes not moving from the woman’s profile, watching her face for the faintest expression. 

Tissaia exhales, before opening her eyes again and turning around to face her fully. She looks more tired than Yennefer has ever seen her. 

Biting her lip, Yennefer sets her untouched tea on the short table beside her and reaches up to Tissaia’s narrow waist, resting a hand on the belted sash there. She slowly unravels the knot and tugs the long sash from her cotton robe, the soft sound of fabric audible as it slides through each individual belt loop.

Tissaia is motionless as she is carefully unwrapped. She closes her eyes again and tilts her head back ever so slightly as the sides of her dressing gown are parted by insistent fingers.

Yennefer leans forward and kisses the smooth skin of Tissaia's bared stomach, dragging her lips over the warm flesh there.

She feels hands come up to rest on either side of her scalp. Fingers slowly comb through her hair in light strokes, brushing the fall of hair behind her ears. 

‘It’s why I plucked you out of that kitchen that night. I couldn’t have cared what you looked like, but I needed to hear more. It was absurd and made no sense to offer to train you and…' she pauses, breathing out a sigh. '...yet here we are.’

Yennefer closes her eyes and stills, focusing on the hands moving through her hair.

‘That first time I saw you perform -,’ she murmurs, resting her forehead against the bottom of Tissaia’s breastbone ‘- I had a sense of what my life was missing. I wanted it - the attention from the audience, that is, but also...I wanted _you_ so much.’

She hears, or rather feels, Tissaia’s breath stutter. She’s gently pushed away, and then Tissaia cups her chin between her hands, lifting Yennefer's eyes to meet hers. 

'You have ruined me.' Yennefer says honestly, gazing up at Tissaia. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever be able to say no to anything you ask me to do.’

'I doubt that will stop you, stubborn thing that you are.’ Tissaia says wryly, the corner of her mouth twisting into a half-smile. ‘The number of grey hairs you’ve given me over these last few years...'

Yennefer surges up and kisses her into silence, wrapping her arms around the smaller woman’s shoulders. It’s a long time before she’s gently pressed away.

‘We have seven hours before we’re expected on stage. And I plan to rest for some of that time.’

Yennefer smiles at her. ‘May I stay with you?’

She’s pleased that there isn’t any hesitation before Tissaia nods once.

‘ _Sleeping_ only, Yennefer. We need to have a long talk before anything else happens.’

Yennefer grins. ‘Like murdering Stregobor?’

‘Don’t tempt me.’

‘I assume you have a bed in this flat, or do you sleep on the piano?’

Tissaia’s stern look is ruined by the light flush to her face.

‘Oh, now that’s an interesting reaction, Tissaia; I’ve ideas for our next practice session now. And I promise, I’ll be extremely attentive to everything you tell me to do.’ 

Grinning, Yennefer kisses her again, and leads her off in the direction of the bedroom.


End file.
